


How You Do It

by katesfolly



Series: Sinking Is Just Like Falling [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: A little bit romantic, Bisexual Male Character, M/M, Sexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-01
Updated: 2013-06-01
Packaged: 2017-12-13 15:45:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/825998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katesfolly/pseuds/katesfolly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and John talk about expectations, and love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How You Do It

John wanders in to the loo, bleary after a long night of travelling, and finds Sherlock at the sink, cleaning his teeth. He is completely, deliciously, irresistibly nude, and John steps right up to him, dropping a kiss on the smooth skin of his left shoulder. They must still be pair-bonding, because John can’t keep his hands to himself, though it’s early and he’s exhausted and his bladder is too full to consider much of anything more than a quick snuggle. He runs the very tips of his fingers down the cleft of Sherlock’s bottom, one fingertip-bump at a time against the impossibly soft fold of humid skin.

“I thought you weren’t gay,” Sherlock leans over to spit. John skims his hand up the outside curve of Sherlock’s arse and smiles. 

“I’m not,” he says.

“You’re not. Because evidence rather suggests…” Sherlock quirks a brow at him, and flicks his eyes to where John’s arm is disappearing behind him. John just grins more. 

“I’m not. I’m also not straight. I don’t like being told what to do. Or who to do. Or who I could or should love, or be in love with.” Their eyes meet in the mirror.

Sherlock’s face rearranges. “Ah. This is an extension of your natural dominance.” John grimaces at him. “It wasn’t always this way though.” This last has the flavor of a question, if not the actual inflection. 

John’s nuzzling the back of Sherlock’s shoulder, which feels warm and tingly, and sends a shiver down Sherlock’s spine. ”No. It wasn’t that way till I did something people weren’t expecting, and got a lot of input I didn’t want. It happened more than once, people deciding what I was, or what I should be, and then being absolutely affronted when it wasn’t true.” He detaches himself to use the toilet. “Sometimes, I was one of the people who didn’t want to change my ideas about myself. It…Training as a doctor wasn’t a popular move, then joining up…” he shakes his head. “Then, yes, the boyfriend thing.”

Sherlock leans his hands on the vanity and stares at himself in the mirror. He sees a face that’s a little too long, cheekbones too prominent and chin not prominent enough, hair too wild, mouth too generous, eyes too pale and sharp. 

People had decided what Sherlock should be, some of them before he was even born. He had failed miserably to live up to expectations. But he had succeeded in surviving. Then thriving, with John.

John’s gaze drinks Sherlock in, the jut of scapulae under the skin, the long neck, the muscle that shifts under his skin, the dark hair that gathers into an arrow near his bellybutton. 

He runs a warm hand up Sherlock’s spine to brush through the short hairs at his nape. Though John’s not pressing down, Sherlock’s neck relaxes until his head is lolling with chin nearly to chest. The rigid, prickly Sherlock is nowhere to be found, when John is touching him. He seems to drink up touch the way most people would face a pitcher of beer on a scorching day. John considers it, not for the first time; when he was in friendly scrums of his fellow footballers and snogging girls and enjoying the easy intimacy of the military, was Sherlock always alone? He gives Sherlock’s neck a squeeze, trying to convey through his skin that he’s not alone now. They’re not alone now.

People have decided what John and Sherlock should be. They have been something less, and it feels very much like they’ve become something more.


End file.
